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By Carolina Mandl and Tatiana Bautzer
The bank now has a network of nearly 4,750 branches.Following the
After realizing major cost savings from that acquisition,Bradesco is focused on using the integrated operations to boostrevenue, said Lazari. He spoke on his first day in chargefollowing a shareholder assembly on Monday.
"A big part of the revenue increase will come from sellingmore products per client," he told Reuters in an interview atBradesco's headquarters in the
Bradesco aims to raise the average number of products soldto each client to two by year end, from 1.6 currently, Lazarisaid. He added that the bank has been using advanced dataanalytics to identify which products should be offered to its 30million clients.
The ascent of Lazari, 54, who was named in February toreplace former CEO Luiz Carlos Trabuco Cappi, who has taken overas chairman, marks a generational sea change at Bradesco. FormerChairman Lázaro Brandão, 91, stepped down in October.
Lazari said Bradesco is focused on expanding digitalservices not only with its online bank Next, which it launchedin late October in an appeal to younger clients, but also byworking with financial technology startups, known as fintechs.
Lazari said Next has already reached 80,000 clients.
Although fintechs represent potential competition forBradesco's products and services, Lazari said partnering withthem could help to retain clients of all ages.
He said the bank's 2018 budget forecasts return on equity inline with last year's performance of about 18 percent, whichranked lower than larger rival Itau Unibanco's.
"We have made a strong bet in
Lazari says Bradesco "will learn, along with other Brazilianbanks" to be profitable with the country's record-low interestrates, which he said are likely to remain low in the mediumterm. "We are not expecting rates to come back to high levels."
Bradesco shares slipped 1.4 percent on Tuesday, in line withBrazilian peers.(Reporting by Carolina Mandl and Tatiana BautzerAdditional reporting by Daniel FlynnEditing by Brad Haynes and Matthew Lewis)
